“Infidels” at Home Jesuits and Muslim Slaves in Seventeenth-Century Naples and Spain

journal of jesuit studies 1 (2014) 192-211

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Emanuele Colombo Assistant Professor of Catholic Studies, DePaul University [email protected]

Abstract

Drawing from published and unpublished Jesuit sources—treatises, handbooks, reports, and letters—this article explores the Jesuit apostolate to Muslim slaves in Naples and in different cities of Spain during the seventeenth century. Under the blanket of missionary rhetoric, a Jesuit viewpoint not otherwise available is found in these sources, which highlight their missionary methods and strategies and clarify the special status of the apostolate to Muslim slaves in the Jesuit mind. While Europe was the setting of missions to Muslim slaves, and the missions were considered a variation of the so-called popular missions, they were often charged with a deeper symbolic value. Because the missionaries’ interlocutors were “infidels,” so different in their culture and in their habits, Jesuits used forms of accommodation extremely similar to those they used in the missions overseas. Converting Muslim slaves in Naples or in Spain was conceived by Jesuits as an alternative and effective way to go on a mission “even among Turks,” as the Jesuit Formula of the Institute stated, despite never leaving European kingdoms for Ottoman lands. Located between the missions overseas, where Jesuits converted the “infidels” in distant lands, and the missions in Europe, where they attempted to save the souls of baptized people who lacked religious education, were “other Indies,” where Jesuits could encounter, convert, and baptize the “infidels” at home.

Keywords

Jesuit – Muslims – slaves – accommodation – “Other Indies” – popular missions – conversion – Baldassare Loyola – Naples – Spain

* The author holds a Ph.D. in Church History from the Università degli Studi di Padova in Padua. He is the author of Convertire i musulmani: L’esperienza di un gesuita spagnolo del Seicento (Bruno Mondadori, 2007) and Un gesuita inquieto: Carlo Antonio Casnedi (1643–1725) e il suo tempo (Rubbettino, 2006).

“infidels” At Home 193

This article is situated at the confluence of three different streams of research that have been growing in the last few years. The first shows the relevance of the phenomenon of slavery in Mediterranean Europe up to the eighteenth century.1 The second highlights the surprisingly high number of Muslims, not only slaves, present in Europe in the early modern period; they have often been overlooked by historians because of their particular status as an “invisible” minority or as “familiar strangers.”2 The third considers the cultural and social impact of conversion both in Europe and overseas.3 In the specific case of Islam, complementing scholarship on Christian converts to Islam, or the “Christians of Allah,” research on the “Muslims of Christ,” or Muslims who converted to Christianity is increasing.4 Contributing to this vast and complex literature, this article explores the Jesuit apostolate to Muslim slaves in Naples and in different cities of Spain during the seventeenth century. The sources for this essay are mainly published and unpublished treatises, handbooks, reports, and letters. These documents raise the question of reliability and demand careful, critical analysis, as the boundaries between the genres of history, internal propaganda, and spiritual edification are often tenuous. However, under the blanket of missionary rhetoric, a Jesuit viewpoint not otherwise available is found in these sources, which

1 An excellent historiographic overview is Salvatore Bono, “La schiavitù nel mediterraneo moderno: Storia di una storia,” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 65 (2002): 1–16. For Italy and Naples, see Bono, Schiavi musulmani nell’Italia moderna: Galeotti, vu’cumprà, domestici (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1999); for Spain, see Alessandro Stella, Histoires d’esclaves dans la péninsule Ibérique (Paris: EHESS, 2000). 2 Jocelyne Dackhlia and Bernard Vincent, eds., Les musulmans dans l’histoire de l’Europe, vol. 1: Une intégration invisible (Paris: Albin Michel, 2011); Dackhlia and Wolfgang Kaiser eds., Les musulmans dans l’histoire de l’Europe, vol. 2: Passages et contacts en Méditerranée (Paris: Albin Michel, 2013); Lucette Valensi, Ces étrangers familiers: Musulmans en Europe (XVIe –XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Payot, 2012). 3 Tijana Krstić, Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011); Eric Dursteler, Renegade Women: Gender, Identity, and Boundaries in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011); “Conversion in the Early Modern World,” special issue, Journal of Early Modern History 17 (2013); Giuseppe Marcocci, Aliocha Maldavski, Ilaria Pavan, and Wietse de Boer, eds., Space and Conversion: a Global Approach (16th–20th centuries) (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 4 On the “renegades,” see Bartolomé and Lucille Bennassar, Les Chrétiens d’Allah: L’histoire extraordinaire des renégats, XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: Perrins, 1989). On Muslims who converted to Christianity see Beatriz Alonso Acero, Sultanes de Berbería en tierras de la cristian- dad: Exilio musulmán, conversión y asimilación en la monarquía hispánica (siglos XVI y XVII) (Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2006); Isabelle Poutrin, Convertir les musulmans: Espagne, 1491–1609 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2012).

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194 Colombo highlight Jesuit missionary methods and strategies and clarify the special status that the apostolate to Muslim slaves held in the Jesuit mind. While Europe was the setting of missions to Muslim slaves, and the missions were considered a variation of the so-called popular missions, they were often charged with a deeper symbolic value. Because the missionaries’ interlocutors were “infidels,” so different in their culture and in their habits, Jesuits used forms of accommodation much like those they used in the missions overseas. In short, we face here a hybrid model of mission, directed toward an “other Indies” located halfway between the overseas missions and the popular missions in Europe. The article begins with a brief overview that provides the context of the Jesuit apostolate to Muslim slaves. Following that is an analysis of the social status of converted slaves, both as regarded by officials of the early modern Catholic Church, and as seen more particularly from the standpoint of the Jesuits’ missionary strategies.

Jesuits and Muslim Slaves in Naples and Spain

During the seventeenth century, Naples was one of the most important Italian ports and a pivot point for the commerce of slaves. Although it is always difficult to estimate precise numbers, many studies have determined that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was in Naples a stable presence of at least 10,000 Muslim slaves, mostly captives of war and piracy who came from the Maghreb.5 Some of them were the property of the Kingdom of Naples and worked on galleys. Others, mainly women and children, were owned by private families and worked as domestic servants. The slaves were not the only Muslims in the city: Naples hosted a large and well-organized Muslim community that enjoyed a fair amount of autonomy and was always ready to defend its rights and claims. In the city, Muslims often were employed as moneylenders; they established a mosque in the Fondaco of the Moors near the port, where Muslim religious authorities would lead prayer services that were often attended by curious Christians.6 Starting in the mid-sixteenth century, diocesan priests and various religious orders strengthened the apostolate to Muslim slaves in a campaign that saw collaboration between ecclesiastical and secular authorities. Naples soon

5 See Giuliana Boccadamo, Napoli e l’Islam: Storie di musulmani, schiavi e rinnegati in età moderna (Naples: D’Auria, 2010). 6 Boccadamo, Napoli e l’Islam, 13–15. Mosques and cemeteries for Muslims existed in the same period in many cities of Italy. See Bono, Schiavi musulmani, 241–252.

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“infidels” At Home 195 became the Italian city with the highest number of Muslim slave converts to Christianity.7 As Peter Mazur has recently observed, “for the rulers of Naples, both clerical and lay, the conversion and assimilation into society of a Muslim slave was a victory full of symbolism that embodied the highest values of the Catholic Church and the Spanish monarchy.”8 The Jesuits, who had been present in the city since 1552, were not indifferent to this apostolate and, toward the end of the 1580s, began converting slaves privately owned by Neapolitan families as well as slaves on the galleys.9 However, it was in the seventeenth century that the Society of Jesus launched a more serious apostolate to Muslim slaves in Naples. In 1601, the two Jesuits Girolamo d’Alessandro and Giacomo Antonio Giannoni, after meeting Muslim slaves while they were preaching in the city, created a lay confraternity, the Congregation of the Epiphany, to “take [them] away from hell.”10 At first, mem- bers of the confraternity visited the slaves in their masters’ homes; then, they began gathering them into the church of the Jesuit college in order to catechize them. The success of the congregation and of this Jesuit apostolate fluctuated during the century, depending on the support of local bishops and nobility and on the presence of particularly zealous missionaries. Such was the case of Baldassarre Loyola (d. 1667), a former Muslim prince of Fez, Morocco, who converted, joined the Society of Jesus, and was sent to Genoa and Naples to preach to the slaves in preparation for the mission to the Grand Mughal in

7 “Between 1583 and 1664, 2,365 slaves were baptized in Naples, more than twice the number registered over similar periods in Rome and Venice.” Peter Mazur, “A Mediterranean Port in the Confessional Age: Religious Minorities in Early Modern Naples,” in A Companion to Early Modern Naples, ed. Tommaso Astarita (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 224. A key institution was the Congrega dei Catecumeni, a confraternity of lay people who worked for the conversion of Muslim slaves created by the archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Paolo Burali d’Arezzo (d. 1578). The Congrega began keeping records of the baptisms adminis- tered. See Gennaro Nardi, “Due opere per la conversione degli schiavi a Napoli,” Asprenas 13 (1966): 170–205; Lance Gabriel Lazar, Working in the Vineyard of the Lord: Jesuit Confraternities in Early Modern Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). 8 Peter Mazur, “Combating ‘Mohammedan Indecency’: The Baptism of Muslim Slaves in Spanish Naples, 1563–1667,” Journal of Early Modern History 13 (2009): 28. 9 Such was the case, for instance, of Giovan Francesco Araldo (d. 1599). Francesco Schinosi, Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù, appartenente al Regno di Napoli, 2 vols. (Naples, Mutio: 1706–1711), 1: 431–432. See Francesco Divenuto, ed., Napoli, L’Europa, e la Compagnia di Gesù nella “Cronica” di Giovan Francesco Araldo (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1998). 10 The congregation was informally known as “Congregation of the Slaves.” See Nardi, “Nuove ricerche sulle congregazioni napoletane a favore degli schiavi: La congregazione degli schiavi dei PP. Gesuiti,” Asprenas 15 (1967): 294–313; Saverio Santagata, Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù appartenente al Regno di Napoli, 2 vols. (Napoli: Mazzola, 1756–1757), 1:28–30.

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196 Colombo

India.11 During his one-year sojourn in Naples (1666–1667), Loyola converted more than three hundred Muslims, helped by his knowledge of Arabic and the Qur’an and by the respect granted to him by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Toward the end of the century, the Jesuit apostolate to Muslim slaves was still active: we know about Francesco di Geronimo (d. 1716), a prominent preacher of popular missions who tirelessly worked to convert Muslim slaves on the galleys.12 In the seventeenth century, Muslims were still a significant population in the Iberian peninsula, even after the final expulsion of the moriscos (1609– 1614). There were communities of descendants of the moriscos who had escaped the expulsions, secretly preserving their Islamic traditions and cus- toms, as well as Muslim slaves who had been captured in North Africa or had voluntarily emigrated from the Maghreb because of frequent famines.13 The great body of scholarship on the moriscos produced over the past few decades has somehow obscured an intriguing paradox: the same monarchy that expelled converted Muslims, whose ancestors had lived in Spain for centuries, welcomed at the same time other Muslims coming from outside with the hope of converting them.14 Jesuit documents provide evidence of this phenomenon: during the years 1609 and 1610, while the final expulsion of the moriscos was underway, more than two hundred Muslim slaves received baptism in the Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid.15 Missions continued throughout the century: starting in the 1620s, Francisco de Alemán (d. 1644) preached to Muslims in Granada at the request of the local archbishop.16 Juan de Almarza (d. 1669) was active in Murcia, where there was a large community of Muslims; he also left a fascinating Catecismo de moros, a manuscript catechism to assist in the conversion of Muslims.17 In Barcelona, Francisco Poch preached to the

11 Emanuele Colombo, “A Muslim Turned Jesuit: Baldassarre Loyola Mandes (1631–1667),” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (2013): 479–504. 12 Carlo de Bonis, Vita del Padre Francesco di Geronimo della Compagnia di Gesù (Naples: Muzio, 1747), 29–30. Di Geronimo was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI. 13 Vincent, “Musulmans et conversion en Espagne au XVIIe siècle,” in Conversions islamiques: identités religieuses en Islam méditerranéen, ed. Mercedes García-Arenal (Paris: Maison neuve et Larose, 2001), 193–203, at 195. 14 See Vincent, “Les musulmans dans l’Espagne moderne,” in Les musulmans dans l’histoire d’Europe, 1:615. On Jesuits and moriscos, see Francisco de Borja Medina, “La Compañía de Jesús y la minoría morisca,” AHSI 57 (1988): 3–136. 15 ARSI, Tolet. 37a, 460–466v. 16 DHCJ, 1:45; the archbishop of Granada was Cardinal Augustín de Spinola. 17 DHCJ, 1:79–80; Juan de Almarza, Catecismo de moros, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Ms. 9/2263.

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Muslim slaves on the galleys for at least nine years (1676–1685) and described his ministry in correspondence with Rome.18 Finally, the two most famous “apostles” of Muslim slaves are certainly Juan Gabriel Guillén (d. 1675) and Tirso González de Santalla (d. 1705).19 In many cities of southern Spain, but also in Madrid, they preached both the traditional popular missions to Catholics and special missions for Muslim slaves. González, who later became the thirteenth superior general of the Society, composed a Handbook for the Conversion of Muslims, which had wide diffusion from Europe to China, was translated into Polish and Arabic, and became the reference book of the Society on the topic.20 When they converted and were baptized, either under pressure by the missionaries or out of a sincere desire, Muslim slaves raised an important question within the Catholic Church. How could a Christian, many Catholics asked, be the slave of another Christian?

Christian Slaves, Christian Masters

“If you say you are a Christian, you will not be a slave.”21 This adage, popular in the Muslim community in early modern Naples, is definitely misleading as a reflection of historical reality. In fact, as many scholars have recently shown, Muslim slaves who converted to Catholicism did not obtain freedom.22 The manumission of slaves was regulated by civil authorities, and in the Spanish kingdoms it was never granted as a consequence of conversion. Nevertheless, for the Catholic Church, the status of converted Muslim slaves created a moral dilemma. How could a Christian keep another Christian as a slave? Since the Middle Ages, theologians and canonists had discussed this issue, providing different answers.23 In the early modern period, the more common view was that

18 DHCJ, 4:3161–3162. 19 Elías Reyero, Misiones del Padre Tirso González de Santalla, XIII prepósito general de la Compañía de Jesús, 1665–86 (Santiago de Compostela: Editorial Compostelana, 1913). On Guillén see DHCJ, 3:1841. 20 Tirso González de Santalla, Manuductio ad conversionem Mahumetanorum in duas partes divisa, 2 vols. (Madrid: Villa-Diego, 1687). On the book and its circulation see Colombo, “Even among Turks: Tirso González de Santalla (1624–1705) and Islam,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 44/3 (2012). 21 Quoted in Boccadamo, Napoli, 16. 22 Bono, Schiavi musulmani. 23 Benjamin Z. Kedan, “Muslim Conversion in Canon Law,” in Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Berkeley, California, 28 July – 2 August 1980,

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198 Colombo it was forbidden to enslave a Christian—for instance when a prisoner of war was discovered to have been a baptized individual.24 However, if a Muslim slave decided to convert, his or her servile status would not change. The manumission of convert slaves was considered a gesture of charity, but not a duty, for the masters. The persistence of the servile status of the convert slaves also went unquestioned in spite of the decree (motu proprio) issued by Pope Paul III in 1549, and confirmed by Pius V in 1566, which “dictated that any slave who had been baptized could come to the Capitoline Hill, seat of the municipal administration of the city of Rome, and be granted freedom and the status of a Roman citizen.”25 The fact that the papal decree regularly went unenforced reveals both a discrepancy between the law and reality on this matter and a fear widespread in the Catholic world that converted Muslims would return to their countries and to their religion.26 The same scenario appears in Jesuit documents from early modern Naples and Spain. When, for instance, Neapolitan Jesuits inherited a slave from a benefactor, they hurried to manumit him not out of obligation, but rather “to avoid murmurings” and to show they were not greedy.27 In Spain, after the baptism of a slave, the sponsor sometimes gave him money for his redemption; however, this was clearly a free decision and not an obligation, and it did not happen often.28 Faithful to this tradition, Jesuits never pressured masters to manumit their converted slaves, but were often concerned about their slaves’ treat ment and tried to improve their conditions.29 They were also well aware of a silent agreement of reciprocity regarding the treatment of Muslim slaves in Europe and that of Christian slaves in North Africa: Jesuits, who were often involved in the redemption of Christian captives of Muslims,

ed. Stephan Kuttner and Kenneth Pennington (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1985), 321–332. 24 See, for instance, the motu proprio Licet omnibus (1571), issued by Pius V after the Battle of Lepanto. 25 Mazur, “Combating ‘Mohammedan Indecency,’” 30. 26 Even when they had been regularly redeemed, baptized Muslims in Naples could not abandon the city without special permission. See Boccadamo, Napoli, 32–35. In the second half of the seventeenth century, a prominent canonist, Cardinal Giovanni Battista de Luca, reinforced that a slave who converted remained a slave. Luca, Il Dottor Volgare, ossia il compendio di tutta la legge civile, canonica, feudale e municipale (Rome: Corvo, 1673), 4:18–19. 27 ARSI, Ital. 62, 139v; 299; 317. Ital. 63, 144v; 148v. See also Boccadamo, Napoli, 11–12. 28 See, for instance, González, Manuductio, 2:295. 29 Jesuits spread stories of evil masters killed by their slaves, explicitly supporting the slaves. See Schinosi, Istoria, 1:433–434.

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“infidels” At Home 199 feared the repercussions against Christians in response to abuses against Muslim slaves. In this complex intersection of theological and moral questions, and political circumstances, one thing was clear in the Jesuit mind: converting Muslim slaves was an extremely attractive form of apostolate, and it was also particularly useful for other Catholics who could assist in the effort.

Converting at Home

The last decade of the sixteenth century was marked in the Society of Jesus by a strong emphasis on missions under pressure from Superior General Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615), who insistently reminded that a Jesuit vocation required one not to be “stocked and linked to a particular place” but, to the contrary, “to go where we see the greater need and necessity of the souls.”30 Acquaviva pointed out that Europe, and not only the Indies, should be seen as an immense field of mission. The consequence was the growth of Jesuit popular missions in Europe’s cities and countryside, following specific Jesuit styles and strategies.31 In Naples and Spain, missions to Muslim slaves arose “almost by chance” when Jesuits became aware of their presence in the houses of the nobility. Muslims were an integral part of the social fabric in the cities where they lived and had significant interactions with Catholics. It is therefore not surprising that the style of those missions resembled the theatrical approach of the popular Jesuit missions.32 In Naples, Baldassarre Loyola’s sermons sometimes lasted more than four hours, and he preached in public both to Muslims and Christians, and privately to “the most stubborn Muslims.”33 The pulpit was transformed into a stage, where

30 De jubilaeo et missionisbus (1590), quoted in Paolo Broggio, Evangelizzare il mondo: Le mis- sioni della Compagnia di Gesù tra Europa e America (secoli XVI–XVII) (Rome: Carocci, 2004), 51. 31 On popular missions in Spain, see Francisco Luis Rico Callado, Misiones populares en España entre el Barroco y la Ilustración (Valencia: Alfons el Magnànim, 2006); on Naples see David Gentilcore, “‘Adapt Yourselves to the People’s Capabilities’: Missionary Strategies, Methods and Impact in the Kingdom of Naples, 1600–1800,” Journal of Ecclesiastic History 45 (1994): 269–296; Jennifer D. Selwyn, A Paradise Inhabited by Devils: The Jesuits’ Civilizing Mission in Early Modern Naples (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 32 Marc Fumaroli, Héros et orateurs: Rhétorique et dramaturgie cornéliennes (Genève: Droz, 1990); Bernadette Majorana, “Une pastorale spectaculaire: Missions et missionaires jésuites en Italie (XVIe–XVIIe siècle),” Annales 57 (2002): 297–332. 33 Domenico Brunacci, Vita del Ammirabile P. Baldassarre Loiola de Mandes della Compagnia di Gesù, ARSI, Vitae 106, 111–113.

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200 Colombo every detail was studied in order to inspire the interlocutors. In Spain, one Jesuit, in order to persuade his Muslim audience, performed dramatic monologues:

Turning his back toward the public and facing the wall, he wiped the sweat off his brow with his hand, and then placed his palm on the wall and exclaimed in a loud voice: “Oh wall, listen to the Word of God, and be witness to the fact that I have preached the truth to these insensible people.” And then, turning to face the Muslims, he spoke to them menac- ingly: “I, I will be strict against you before God on the Judgment Day. I will condemn your stubbornness before the Supreme Judge […]. O good God! Melt the hardness of their hearts!”34

Processions and grand ceremonies, which were used in the Jesuit popular missions, were even more important in the Muslim context, since they were pow- erful instruments to bridge the cultural gap. Writing from Barcelona in 1680, Francisco Poch reported that “during Holy Week the galleys were decorated like a church.” Each ship had three altars and the benches were adorned with flowers. Among the images, one of the Virgin Mary—a highly respected figure in the Muslim world—was considered a possible common ground with the Muslim slaves.35 When they preached to private slaves, missionaries faced different prob- lems, the most serious of which was the lack of cooperation by the masters: they were reluctant to send the slaves to religious services, fearing they might lose what they considered to be their private property or be obliged to treat their slaves humanely. Jesuits often asked for the collaboration of the local nobility, who through social pressure could persuade the masters to cooper- ate. In Naples, taking advantage of his status as a former prince, Loyola was in touch with the viceroy Pedro Antonio de Aragón and his wife; they sent their own slaves to listen to Loyola’s homilies and encouraged the city’s nobles to do the same.36 In Seville, during an extremely successful campaign in 1672, González and Guillén were helped by the well-known nobleman Don

34 González, Manuductio, 2:299–300. 35 Francisco Poch to Gianpaolo Oliva, 10 November 1680, ARSI, Arag. 27 II, 95. On Mary as a possible bridge between Christians and Muslims in the medieval and early modern period, see Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960), 175–184. On the use of images in an earlier period, see Felipe Pereda, Las imágenes de la discordia: Política y poética de la imagen sagrada en la España del cuatrocientos (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2008). 36 Baldassarre Loyola, APUG, 1060 I, 68.

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“infidels” At Home 201

Miguel de Mañara, knight of Calatrava and hermano mayor, or leading mem- ber, of a local lay confraternity, the Santa Hermandad de la Caridad. Don Miguel made every effort to gather the Muslim slaves, even paying each of them the equivalent of a day’s wages for each day they took part in the mission.37 Lay confraternities were also crucial in Naples: it was easier for lay people to connect with Muslim slaves, who were scared and reluctant to be in touch directly with priests or civil authorities. Additionally, the participation of lay Catholics in these missions was extremely useful in strengthening their own faith: Jesuits were often more confident about the benefit of their missions for the Catholics involved in them, than in the fruit they bore among the Muslims.38 Jesuit missions in Europe were often devoted to the pastoral care of sick and dying people.39 This was also true of the ministry among dying Muslims on the galleys, in the houses of their masters, and in hospitals. After a race against time, conversion of a dying slave was celebrated as a special triumph. Jesuits often took advantage of the bodily weakness of dying slaves in order to convert them, but they never acknowledged it. On the contrary, they considered deathbed conversions to be the truest ones, because the converts sought no political, social, or economic benefits from them. González used this argument to belit- tle the phenomenon of “renegades,” Christians who converted to Islam, who were a true thorn in the side of Catholic propaganda. While it was true that many Christians “brought into captivity by the devil” had embraced Islam for material advantages, according to González they never converted on their deathbed.40 The sources and reports from the missions highlight the oscillation between the “pedagogy of fear” and the “pedagogy of charity,” a double-faceted strategy that was not new in the missionary style of the Society of Jesus. Warning of the consequences of the Muslims’ stubborn fidelity to Islam, Jesuits spoke in dark tones of the hell to which the slaves would be confined if they did not convert. The description of hell—a recurring topic in the traditional popular missions—was adapted to the Muslim audience and was identified as the

37 González, Manuductio, 2:291. 38 González, “Introduction,” Manuductio, 2; Loyola, APUG 1060 I. The same idea can be found in different Jesuit books on the conversion of Muslims. See Colombo, “Jesuits and Islam in Seventeenth-Century Europe: War, Preaching, and Conversion,” in L’islam visto da occidente: Cultura e religione del Seicento europeo di fronte all’Islam, ed. Bernard Heyberger et al. (Milan and Genoa: Marietti, 2009), 315–340. 39 See Callado, Misiones populares, 251 ff. 40 González, Manuductio, 2:41. Baldassarre Loyola, APUG 1060 I, 23; 61.

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202 Colombo kingdom of Mohammed.41 In 1610 in Naples, a Muslim slave who was dying did not want to convert. A Jesuit visited him and, taking a candle, drew it near the hand of the slave, who moved his hand away not to be burned. The Jesuit said, “Oh wicked one, do you escape this little fire that is like water, if compared to the fire of hell? What will you do when, in a few hours, you will go to the house of the devils, where not only your hand, but your whole body and soul will burn for eternity?”42 During his homilies in Spanish cities, González used to display the fearful image of an alma condenada, a soul condemned to hellfire, to show to the Muslims their destiny if they did not convert.43 At the same time, charity was critical in moving Muslims’ souls. González and Guillén recalled that in Seville several Muslims converted because they were inspired by the archbishop, who cared for and comforted the sick in the local hospital. In Naples, many conversions occurred in the Hospital for Incurables, where Jesuits and other religious assisted the sick and the dying.44 Missions to Muslim slaves, both in Naples and in Spain, were considered an extension of the popular missions, directed both to the conversion of Muslims and the progress in the faith of baptized Catholics. When the masters brought their slaves to church, Jesuits preached to the former first, highlighting the grace and the responsibilities of their status of Christians. Additionally, the imposing ceremonies organized for Muslims attracted many Christian onlook- ers and had an impact on the entire city.45 Muslims were part of the larger society of the cities in which they lived. At the same time, they represented something more in the eyes of Jesuits: as interlocutors, they were “infidels.”

Converting “Infidels”

The Jesuit sources reveal the same double-faceted attitude we often find in other European approaches to Islam in the seventeenth century: hostility and

41 Loyola to Brunacci, Naples, 2 October 1666, APUG, 1060 I, 10–11. 42 ARSI, Neap. 72, 140. A similar episode occurred in 1624. Santagata, Istoria, 2: 330–331; Mazur, “Combating ‘Mohammedan Indecency,’” 37. This practice was common in Jesuit popular missions. Gentilcore, “‘Adapt Yourselves,’” 281. 43 González, Manuductio, 2:229. 44 On Spain, see Relación de los maravillosos efectos que en la ciudad de Sevilla ha obrado una misión de los Padres de la Compañía de Jesús (Seville: s.n., 1672). On Naples, see APUG 1060 I, 23; 61. 45 In his letters, Loyola talked about the high number of Christians who “converted” during his missions to Muslims (APUG 1060 I, 10–11, 24–25, 64, 221, 228).

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“infidels” At Home 203 fascination, repulsion as well as attraction. From a theoretical perspective, Islam was a danger to Christendom. This was clearly perceived by Jesuits in Naples and Spain, where they had been involved in the anti-Ottoman propaganda during the “long seventeenth century,” from the Battle of Lepanto (1571) to the Battle of Vienna (1683). In their writings, Jesuits supported a “culture of antagonism” against Islam, and the conversion of the “most dangerous enemies of faith” was considered a spiritual triumph for Catholicism, which antici- pated or reinforced the military victories.46 The medieval arguments that were reiterated in early modern anti-Muslim polemics fitted perfectly with this approach.47 González in his Handbook, Almarza in his Catecismo, and Baldassarre Loyola in his homilies largely reinforced the arguments of medieval polemicists: the condemnation of Mohammed as a false-prophet, the denial of Islamic sexual morality, and the definition of Islam as “the sum of all the heresies.” Islam was portrayed as unreasonable, incompatible with human nature. In a section of his Handbook, for instance, González demonstrated “the falsity of the Qur’an through the Qur’an itself,” and asked sarcastically, “How could one not be stunned and surprised that reasonable human beings con- sider these tales and these ridiculous dreams as an article of faith? How can they revere Mohammed, who invented all those tales?”48 While repeating these arguments, Jesuits soon realized they were insuffi- cient aids to converting Muslims. In actual encounters with Muslim slaves, it was necessary to listen as well as indoctrinate, to approach Muslims in a human way and to become as close as possible to them. Such approaches were easier for Jesuits who had already spent time in Muslim lands, and easier still for a former Muslim prince like Loyola. In other cases, Jesuits tried to use stories of prominent converted Muslims, which could attract the attention of the slaves.49 To make the encounters more effective, Jesuits put into practice different forms of accommodation, as their confreres did in other missions overseas.

46 Géraud Poumarède, Pour en finir avec la Croisade: Mythes et réalités de la lutte contre les Turcs aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009); Francisco Elias de Tejada, Nápoles Hispánico, vol. 3, Las Españas Aureas 1554–1598 (Madrid: Montejurra, 1959), 147–164. 47 Miguel Angel de Bunes Ibarra, La imagen de los musulmanes y del Norte de África en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII: Los carácteres de una hostilidad (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1989). 48 González, Manuductio, 2:65. See similar arguments in Almarza, Catecismo, 1–15; Loyola, APUG 1060 I/5. 49 González, Manuductio, 2:40–44; Reyero, Misiones, 289–293.

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“‘Accommodating’ oneself to others, in the interpretation that the Society of Jesus gave the notion, was a means necessary to obtaining the end of ‘winning them over to Christ.’”50 An intriguing form of accommodation was the approach toward Muslim women, a frequent highlight in the Jesuits’ accounts despite the fact that women were a minority among the slaves. Women were usually presented as reasonable, sensitive, and gifted with natural virtues. In 1649 in Naples, Jesuits witnessed the conversion of Cata, a “twenty-five-year-old young woman, tall, noble and lovely, extremely talented as often are noble people; she claimed to be the daughter of a Muslim ruler.” At first she did not want to convert, because she was proud of her religion; however, when she became deathly ill, her master asked a Jesuit to take advantage of the situation. Eventually, she was persuaded by a dream, and decided to convert. She died gazing at the cross, and “after her death, the stench and deformity of the ill- ness disappeared, and her body was fragrant and beautiful.”51 In Málaga, a young Muslim woman who converted was informed that she would be set free and could return to Algiers, her native city; “she kindly answered that she would prefer to stay in Spain as a slave among Christians, than to go back to her Muslim land as a free woman.”52 Converted women were particularly effective in converting other Muslim women, and Jesuits often asked for their help.53 The extremely positive representation of women— not frequent in traditional Jesuit popular missions—was likely an implicit argument to create a contrast with the inferior status of women in Islam, which was one of the Jesuits’ arguments to convince their audience of its alleged falseness.54 The problem of language, a key issue in the Jesuit missions overseas, was also raised in the missions to Muslim slaves. In Naples, Jesuits soon realized that it was necessary to master Arabic to effectively communicate with the slaves. The importance of studying Arabic was not new in the Society of Jesus. Ignatius had planned different projects—most of which were never realized— to create Arabic speaking colleges in order to promote Jesuit missions in North Africa. Later, the Roman College introduced the teaching of Arabic as well as a

50 Adriano Prosperi, “The Missionary,” in Baroque Personae, ed. Rosario Villari (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 173. 51 ARSI, Neap. 204, 94. 52 González, Manuductio, 2:295. 53 ARSI, Neap. 72 XIX, 138–140v. 54 See Almarza, Catecismo, 44–49 (“Impugnase la licencia de repudio”); González, Manuductio, 2:222–224.

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“infidels” At Home 205 printing press with Arabic type.55 While these prior attempts were aimed at evangelizing lands outside of Europe, in Naples a special institution was created for the evangelization of Muslim slaves. In 1603, the Jesuits Pietro Antonio Spinelli and Mariano Manieri started the Academy of Languages (Accademia dei Linguaggi) in the Collegio Massimo in Naples.56 Manieri had been to Algiers thirteen times on behalf of the viceroy of Naples on missions for the redemption of Christian captives. “When he went back to Naples with the knowledge of different African languages, he taught those languages to some of our young [Jesuits] […]. In this way, Manieri acquired some companions for catechizing Muslims in Naples.”57 The importance of languages was recalled a few years later in the provincial congregation of Naples (1619), when another Jesuit was recommended as a possible teacher of Arabic languages.58 He was Pietro Ferraguto (d. 1656), author of one of the first Turkish grammars in Europe.59 Born in Messina, Ferraguto had been captive for about six years in Tunisia, where he acquired a good knowledge of Turkish. Back in Naples, he decided to put his knowledge at the service of the evangelization of Muslim slaves, “for the salvation of those souls immersed in the errors,” as he wrote to Cardinal Robert Bellarmine in the dedication of his grammar.60 Despite the fact that the Academy of Languages was a short-lived experiment that never flourished, the mere fact of its creation, together with Maniero and Ferraguto’s engagement in missionary activity, shows a particular sensibility in a period when the academic study of Eastern languages was at its earliest stages. In

55 On Ignatius, see Emanuele Colombo, “Defeating the Infidels, Helping their Souls: Ignatius Loyola and Islam,” in Brill’s Companion to Ignatius of Loyola: Life, Writings, Spirituality, ed. Robert A. Maryks (Leiden: Brill, 2014). On the printing press, see Giuseppe Castellani, “La tipografia del Collegio Romano,” AHSI 3 (1933): 11–16; on the teaching of Arabic, see Ricardo García Villoslada, Storia del Collegio romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione della Compagnia di Gesù (1773) (Rome: Università Gregoriana, 1954), 71–72. 56 See Santagata, Istoria, 1:572. On Spinelli, see Antonio Barone, Della vita del Padre Pierantonio Spinelli della Compagnia di Giesù (Naples: s.n., 1707), 100–101. 57 Santagata, Istoria, 2:469. See also ibid., 1:28, 95, 504–505, 572. On Maniero’s missions in Algiers, see ARSI, Ital. 171, 304–305v. 58 Santagata, Istoria, 1:42. 59 The manuscript is preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, Ms. III F 52. See Alessio Bombaci, “Padre Pietro Ferraguto e la sua Grammatica turca (1611),” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 1 (1940): 205–236; Luciano Rocchi, Il “Dittionario della lingua turchesca” di Pietro Ferraguto (1611) (Trieste: Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2012); Santagata, Istoria, 2:99–102, 157, 348–358, 569–573. According to Santagata, in 1617 a dictionary and a grammar of Arabic and Moresco were published by the Congregation of the Epiphany as an instrument for the conversion of Muslim slaves. Ibid., 1:41–42. 60 Bombaci, “Padre Pietro Ferraguto,” 206–207.

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Rome a few years later, the Congregation de Propaganda Fide launched more systematic plans in the same direction.61 In Spain, according to missionary reports, the need for learning Arabic seemed to be less urgent: most of the private slaves could understand, and sometimes even read, Iberian languages, and there are only few references to a need for an interpreter.62 However, there were Jesuits who studied Arabic, knew the books printed in Europe in Oriental languages, and produced trans- lations, grammars, and dictionaries. They were connected with the missionaries: González, for instance, who did not have a direct knowledge of the Muslim culture, was in touch with the prominent Jesuit orientalist Tomás de León.63 An extreme form of accommodation can be found in two fictional dialogues, proposed as examples of a practical approach to Muslims. At the end of his Turkish grammar, Pietro Ferraguto inserted a “Dialogue between a Turk and a Christian.” In the first part of the dialogue, the Christian is scandalized by Muslim habits, such as polygamy and the ease with which men were able to abandon their wives; at the end, however, he seems persuaded that he and the Muslims worship the same God. The Turk says, “Let’s pray to God with all our heart so that he enlightens us, and will help us to know the truth,” and the Christian answers, “I hope God will allow us to meet each other in heaven, if we follow his law.”64 In his Handbook, González presented a long dialogue with a similar scenario. The final speech of the Christian is intriguing: “Pray persis- tently to God to enlighten you, so that you may be worthy of his light; avoid vices, practice piety, love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself.”65 Unlike the conventional model of similar dialogues, here the two Muslims do not convert, suggesting that González and Ferraguto were probably inspired by actual encounters. The emphasis on the common ground between Christians and Muslims is radically different from the polemical approach used by Jesuits in their theoretical descriptions of Islam.

61 Giovanni Pizzorusso, “La preparazione linguistica e controversistica dei missionari per l’Oriente islamico: scuole, testi, insegnanti a Roma e in Italia,” in L’islam visto da Occidente, 253–288. 62 González, Manuductio, 2:303; Borja Medina, “La Compañía de Jesús,” 23. 63 Mercedes García-Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, The Orient in Spain: Converted Muslims, the Forged Lead Books of Granada and the Rise of Orientalism (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 315–319; Historia del Colegio de San Pablo, Granada 1554–1765: Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Ms Jesuitas, Libro 773, ed. Joaquín de Béthencourt and Estanislao Olivares (Granada: Facultad de Teología, 1991), 413–414. 64 The dialogue is transcribed in Bombaci, “Padre Pietro Ferraguto,” 230–236. 65 González, Manuductio, 2:155.

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While the climax of the traditional popular missions to Catholics was usually sacramental confession, which marked the return to a Christian life, baptisms were the climax of the missions to Muslim slaves. Jesuits always explained the importance of these religious ceremonies, transformed into grand baroque events. “Both the faithful and the infidels, participating in those sacred ceremonies,” commented González, “and looking at their solemnities, understand that there is something great at stake […]; it would not happen if they saw just men entering the holy water.”66 In Naples and in Spain, at different times, Jesuits had the archbishop celebrating baptisms and confirmations of slaves, and noblemen and civil authorities vying to be their godparents.67 For Jesuits, it was particularly important to celebrate those baptisms in their own churches: both in Naples and Spain they often broke with a tradition of celebrating such baptisms in the cathedral, provoking complaints and jealousy from other religious orders.68 The social inferiority of the slaves raises the question of the level of pressure the Jesuits and the masters may have exerted on them to convert. Of course there were always forms of pressure. However, the documents reveal between the lines a more colorful and nuanced picture than we might imagine. There were Muslims who refused to convert, and openly attacked Jesuits; the alfaquis, or experts in Islamic law, often worked against Jesuits and persuaded slaves not to convert. Muslims were not passive in the face of the Jesuit apostolate. Additionally, the Jesuit sources always insist on the importance of the freedom of the slaves: a conversion was valid only if it was free. “Although we could force you to participate in our missions,” González used to say to the Muslim slaves, “we do not want to use even this kind of violence; we just ask and beg you to participate.”69 This was not just another example of Jesuit rhetoric. A recent study has shown that, beginning in the second half of the sixteenth century, canon law and theological literature featured strong arguments

66 Ibid., 2:296. The description of the imposing ceremony that preceded the baptisms of thirty-eight Muslims in Seville in 1672 circulated in a printed report: Relación de los maravillosos efectos. 67 Archbishops of Naples baptized Muslim slaves who converted in Jesuit missions. In 1605, Cardinal Ottavio Acquaviva baptized twenty-one slaves. Santagata, Istoria, 1:167–168. In 1620, Cardinal Decio Carafa baptized twenty slaves and confirmed a hundred more. Santagata, Istoria, 2:156–157. In 1640, Cardinal Francesco III Boncompagni converted and confirmed a group of slaves. ARSI, Neap. 74, 14–15. On the presence of civil authorities at the baptisms in Spain, see González, Manuductio, 2:295. On Naples, see Santagata, Istoria, 1:167–168; 2:156–157. 68 Reyero, Misiones, 69; Loyola, APUG, 1060 I, 20. 69 González, Manuductio, 2:304.

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208 Colombo against forced baptisms, influenced by the failure of forced conversions, the fiasco of the Catholic strategy towards the moriscos, and the debate about baptism emerging from the New World.70 Jesuits were not naïve about the range of reasons individuals were baptized, and they often questioned the sincerity of conversions. They acknowledged that Muslim slaves might convert for the hope of better treatment. This was the case, for instance, of Muslims sentenced to death in Naples, who, hoping to postpone their executions as long as possible, simulated a spiritual struggle.71 Baptism often did not break the converts’ bonds with their coreligionists or their motherlands, and sometimes the slaves secretly remained Muslims. Well aware of those possibilities, Jesuits were concerned about providing a solid religious education to the converts and were worried about frequent episodes of Muslim converts’ returning “to their sect” because of a lack of education. For this reason, the Jesuits in Naples founded an oratory specifically for baptized slaves and the House of Catechumens that functioned for a few years (1637–1649) following the model of similar institu- tions in other Italian cities.72 In Spain, both González and Guillén organized classes of Christian doctrine for slaves and often postponed baptisms in order to guarantee more effective education of the catechumens.73 In their reports, Jesuits mirrored the letters from the Indies referring to their desire for martyrdom—a topos in the overseas missions—and emphasized the hostile reactions of Muslims to their preaching.74 Guillén reported that, during a mission in Malaga, Muslims covered their heads with their hands and women used their veils, fearing that the missionaries were putting an evil spell on them with their gestures. Some of them yelled at the Jesuits, threatening to

70 Poutrin, Convertir les musulmans. 71 Mazur, “Combating ‘Mohammedan Indecency,’” 37–38. 72 The Oratory for Baptized Slaves (Oratorio degli schiavi battezzati) was founded in 1605. See ARSI, Neap. 72 XV-2, 8. The House of Catechumens was created in 1637 by the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Galeota and could host for one or two weeks Muslims who wanted to convert. During the years 1637 through 1649, the House of Catechumens registered about a hundred baptisms. See Boccadamo, Napoli, 235, 239. In 1659, the Jesuits asked for the support of civil authorities for building another House of Catechumens, which suggests that the previous one no longer existed. See ARSI, Opp. NN. 75, 231–232.) The project probably did not succeed since Baldassarre Loyola, who was in Naples in 1666, never mentioned the House in his several letters. For the House of Catechumens in Rome, see Wipertus Rudt de Collenberg, “Le baptême des musulmans esclaves a Rome aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles,” Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome 101 (1989): 9–181. 73 González, Manuductio, 2:299. 74 See Giancarlo Roscioni, Il desiderio delle Indie: Storie, sogni e fughe di giovani gesuiti ital- iani (Turin: Einaudi, 2000).

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“write to Africa, suggesting [Muslims] fry the captive [Christians] in oil, since they are enemies of Mohammed.”75 Loyola mentioned that in Naples, Muslims “were astonished and confused, and closed their ears, not listening to my arguments against Mohammad,” and recalled that once, during a homily, “a Mohammedan priest, […] listening to what I was saying about Mohammed, stood in the midst of the assembly and began to scream like one haunted.”76 Loyola often risked being killed by Muslims; missionaries were especially endangered when preaching on the galleys, where the social cohesion of the Muslims was stronger. Missions to Muslim slaves raised issues similar to the missions overseas: the need for accommodation, debates about forced baptisms, and the desire for martyrdom. Despite being in Europe, Jesuits described their pastoral activity as if they were in the Indies.

Conclusion: Other Indies

Jesuits in Naples and Spain used similar missionary strategies in the apostolate to Muslim slaves, and their letters and reports circulated in both direc- tions. The story of Baldassarre Loyola offers a clear example of this efficient Jesuit network. In 1666, he preached to Muslim slaves in Naples with great success; four years later, Guillén reported Loyola’s story during his sermons to Muslim slaves in Marbella and attributed the conversion of five of them to the intercession of the then-deceased Jesuit.77 The same story was inserted in González’s Handbook, which, published for the first time in Madrid in 1687, was published again in Naples a few years later for the benefit of local missionaries.78 The conviction that Spain and the Kingdom of Naples were two privileged locations for the conversion of Muslim slaves was also well established among Jesuit superiors. In 1598, Juan Bautista Pacheco, a Jesuit involved in the apostolate to moriscos and Muslims in Spain, wanted to create a new branch of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuitas Descalzos [Discalced Jesuits] who would be especially dedicated to the apostolate to moriscos and Muslims.79 Pacheco proposed his plan to General Acquaviva in Rome and secretly visited Pope

75 Guillén to Oliva, Jesus del Monte, 10 July 1670, in Reyero, Misiones, 237. 76 Brunacci, Vita, 113; Loyola, APUG, 1060 I, 158–159. 77 Guillén to Gianpaolo Oliva, Jésus del Mont, 10 July 1670, in Reyero, Misiones, 236–246. 78 González, Veritas religionis christianae manifeste demonstrata adversus omnes infideles (Naples: Muzio, 1702). 79 On Pacheco see DHCJ, 3:2941; Borja Medina, “La Compañía de Jesús,” 118–119.

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Clement VIII in Ferrara, irritating his superiors. Before sending him back to Spain, Acquaviva ordered him to spend some time in the Kingdom of Naples, where he could see for himself that the Society did not need to change its rule in order to pursue a successful apostolate among Muslims.80 Such an apostolate was already in existence. In Naples and Spain, Muslim slaves had a special status. On the one hand, they were part of the social fabric of the cities in which they lived: for this reason, Jesuit missions to Muslim slaves were an extension of popular missions and could also benefit Catholics of different social ranks. On the other hand, Muslim slaves were extremely distant from the Catholic Church. This distance was highlighted both in polemics against Islam, which reiterated classic medieval anti-Islamic arguments, and in expressions of a need for missionary accommodation to the Muslims’ different culture. In the actual encounters, the special treatment of Muslim women, the desire to learn Arabic, and the attempt to find a common ground with Muslims mirrored the Jesuit strategies of missions overseas. These attitudes did not produce particularly successful results but confirm “an undeniable change in the missionary approach to Muslims and to Islam from that of the texts produced by Catholic missionaries in the previous decades. What was actually new was the belief of the missionaries that they shared a common habitus with Muslims, defined by the use of reason and monotheism.”81 While the emphasis on monotheism is key in the two fictional dialogues analyzed in this article, both written by Jesuits involved in actual encounters with Muslim slaves, the emphasis on the use of reason was also found in the Jesuits’ administration of baptisms. In the Jesuit effort, we can observe a growing sensibility regarding both the liberation of the slaves and the religious instruction of the catechumens. In this evolution, the Jesuits drew from their own history and from their experience in the Indies. In the missionary revival of the seventeenth century, Jesuits viewed missions overseas as a fascinating opportunity and popular missions in Europe— what they called “our Indies”—as “a consolation to those who were left doing lesser tasks than an idealized apostolate in distant lands.”82 Missions to Muslim slaves represented a third category between Europe and the Indies. In 1603, General Acquaviva visited the Jesuit province of Naples; after selecting a group

80 Santagata, Istoria, 1:48–49. Pacheco was sent to Lecce where Bernardino Realino was active in converting Muslim slaves. See ARSI, Vita 125 II, 448–462. 81 Bernard Heyberger, “Polemic Dialogues between Christians and Muslims in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55 (2012): 495–516, at 514. 82 Prosperi, “The Missionary,” 179.

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“infidels” At Home 211 of Jesuits who applied for extra-European missions, he addressed the ones whose departure had been delayed. As a preparation for their future mission among the “infidels,” he told them they should work for the conversion of the Muslim slaves in Naples, and since it was clear that the slaves were not always able to understand Italian, the Jesuits should study Arabic.83 Later, Baldassare Loyola, who hoped to spend his life in the “large field” of the Grand Mughal, was asked by the general to “grow the little garden” of the apostolate with Muslim slaves in Naples.84 When Francesco di Geronimo asked to be sent to Japan, he was answered that “he was worthy to be the Apostle in the Indies of this city and Kingdom of Naples,” where in fact he eventually dedicated himself to the conversion of Muslim slaves and became known as the “apostle of the galleys.”85 The same happened in Spain: Tirso González and Juan Gabriel Guillén, who repeatedly asked to go on overseas missions, found their vocation in the missions to Muslims in Spain.86 Francisco Poch, who insisted on being sent to Algiers but was required to stay in Barcelona, wrote to the general that on the galleys “the debates are so tireless and the fruit is so plentiful that everyone thinks that God our Lord has moved the Indies to this city. […] It seems to me that our God wants me to cultivate with the local infidels my desire to go to Algiers.”87 Converting Muslim slaves in Naples or in Spain was conceived by Jesuits as an alternative and effective way to go on a mission “even among Turks,” as the Jesuit Formula of the Institute stated, despite never leaving European kingdoms for Ottoman lands. Located between the missions overseas, where, Jesuits converted the “infidels” in distant lands, and the missions in Europe, where they attempted to save the souls of baptized people who lacked religious education, were “other Indies.” There, Jesuits could encounter, convert, and baptize “infidels” at home.88

83 See Santagata, Istoria, 1:94–95. 84 Brunacci, Vita, 75. 85 Gentilcore, “‘Adapt Yourselves,’” 272; Francesco Maria d’Aria, Un restauratore sociale: Storia critica della vita di San Francesco de Geronimo da documenti inediti (Rome: Edizioni Italiane, 1943), 619–632. 86 See Colombo, “In virtù dell’obbedienza. Tirso González de Santalla (1624–1705) missionario, teologo, generale,” in Avventure dell’obbedienza nella Compagnia di Gesù: Teorie e prassi fra XVI e XIX secolo, ed. Claudio Ferlan and Fernanda Alfieri (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012), 97–137. 87 Poch to Oliva, 2 July 1676 and 27 March 1680, ARSI, Arag. 27 II, 86, 92. 88 The first appearance of the expression “other Indies,” used in the Society to describe particularly challenging missions in Europe, is found in a letter of 1556 by Cristóbal Rodríguez describing the difficult conversion of the moriscos. See Prosperi, “The Missionary,” 179; “Otras Indias: Missionari della Controriforma tra contadini e selvaggi,” in America e apocalisse e altri saggi (Rome: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, 1999), 65–87.

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